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Society for
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Intersubjectivity:
Self, Other and Lifeworld Abstracts and biographies are available at the end of this document Monday August 10 4:00pm
- 5:30pm Registration Tuesday August 11 Session
I
Laura Duhan Kaplan, "Encountering the Face of
God: A Levinasian Michael D. Barber, "Levinas and the Idea of Black Philosophy"
Brian E. Bowles, "Face to Face in the Flesh: Alterity,
Ontology 11:30am - 1:00pm Lunch Session
II
Charles Bingham, "Language and Intersubjectivity:
Recognizing the
James B. Sauer, "Perception and Meaning: A Realist Account
3:00pm - 3:15pm Break Session III 3:15pm - 5:15pm Chair, Craig Hanks, Chair Mechthild Nagel, "Throwness, Play-in-the World and thQuewstion of Authenticity Kate Evans, "Are you Married:" Examiningh Intersubjectivity and Heternormativity in Schools" 5:15pm - 7:30pm Dinner 7:30pm
Business Meeting Wednesday August, 12 8:30am - 11:30am J. Craig Hanks, Chair
Andrew Altman, "Racial Prejudice and Vote Dilution: The Meaning
Thomas G. Bowen, "Identity and Difference: The Question of
Katharine Loevy, "Black Identity and the Tie
to Session V Time:
TBA Thursday August, 13 Session
VI Gertrude D. Conway, "On the Ambiguity of Being Bicultural" Abolreza Banan, "The Eurocentricity of Economic Development" John Clark, "Regionalities" 11:30 - 1:00 Lunch Session
VII
Charles Harvey, The Ghosts Within Us, The Others Without: My
Gary Borjesson, "City Limits:
Reflections on the Analogy 3:00pm - 3:15pm Break Session
VIII
Chris Meyers, "Intersubjectivity and
Ethics: Good and Bad From
Noel Friday August 14: Session
IX
Andrew W. Schwartz, "Heidegger, Gadamer and
the Ethics of
Brent Adkins, "Intersubjectivity and Death in
Hegel's Phenomenology 3:00pm - 3:15pm Break Session
X
J. Craig Hanks, "The Family as Facilitator and Obstacle: Lani Roberts, "Difference and Hierarchy" 5:15pm
- 7:30pm Dinner 8:00
pm - ??? Trip to Saturday August 15 Session
XII
Mary Ann Clark, "Invisible Made Visible: Radical Interpenetration
Fiona Steinkamp, "Telepathy, Self and the Other"
James Biundo, "Searching For Self: A Pirandellian Perspective" Session
XIII Chris Nagel, "What is T.V.?" Juan Ferret, "An Encounter" 3:00pm - 3:15pm Break Session
XIV
Jordy Rocheleau,
"Discourse Ethics and the Politics of Group Sunday August 16 Good-Bye Friends! Happy and Safe Travels! Brent Adkins
"Intersubjectivity and Death in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit" In this paper I argue that in its articulation of intersubjectivity Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit becomes increasingly complex and these articulations always occur as a more sophisticated encounter with death. There are four such encounters with death in Phenomenology. The first encounter is the well-known and perhaps overused master/slave dialectic which begins with a life-and-death struggle (Kampf auf Leben und Tod) (187). While this is a very important inaugural gesture for Hegel it does not represent either his final or his most complete consideration of death or intersubjectivity in the Phenomenology. The second encounter with death happens in the "ethical order." In the ethical order there is now a twofold consideration of intersubjectivity and death. One from the point of view of the state, and one from the point of view of the individual. From the state's point of view creating situations where individuals will risk their life is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the structures of the state. From the side of the individual death is no longer a meaningless acquiescence to natural negativity. Rather death can now be recuperated by making it a conscious action on the part of the individual. Of course, the actions are done on behalf of the individual by his family. The third encounter with death occurs in the French Revolution where consciousness seeks to act only universally. Since no individual action can represent the universal, everyone is guilty of betraying the revolution, and the only remedy the state has is execution. This leads to two consequences. The first is that death has no meaning, like "lopping off cabbage heads" in Hegel's words. The second is that this difference in the encounter with death allows consciousness to move beyond this stage. Otherwise, the French Revolution risks being just another war on behalf of the state. The final encounter with death comes in the Revealed Religion section. No individuals are risked here. It is God who is risked. The death of god allows the "Transfiguration of death" according to Hegel. From this I argue that this transfiguration of death allows a very different type of intersubjective community from what was possible before. If natural negativity has been destroyed, then there is no danger that the activities of the community will degenerate into some kind of natural order. Rather, they can remain a spiritual order. This is why the community of absolute knowing is the highest form of intersubjectivity in the Phenomenology. Brent Adkins is a graduate student at Loyola
University Chicago. He is currently writing a dissertation on the role of
death in Hegel and Heidegger. His other philosophical interests include
contemporary appropriations of Kant and Hegel in light of psychoanalysis and
phenomenology. Andrew Altman
"Racial Prejudice
and Vote Dilution: The Meaning of Equal Electoral At the center of voting rights law is the principle that citizens must have equal electoral opportunity regardless of race. The principle was enshrined in the Fifteenth Amendment but long ignored throughout the South. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 turned it into more than a paper guarantee. But the Act's effectiveness rested on the expansive interpretation of it given by the Supreme Court. Key to this interpretation was the idea that districting arrangements can "dilute" the votes of racial minorities and that such dilution violated equal opportunity. Yet, the Court has never specified what equal electoral opportunity is or developed a cogent conception of racial vote dilution. My aim is to vindicate a broad interpretation of the Act by developing persuasive accounts of vote dilution and equal electoral opportunity. The accounts revolve around the idea that racial prejudice can unfairly distort the democratic process in ways that violate equal opportunity. Andrew Altman is Professor of Philosophy at The
George Washington University. He is the author of Critical Legal Studies:
A Liberal Critique (Princeton U.P.) and Arguing About Law ( Abdolreza Banan
"The Eurocentricity of Economic Development" This paper considers
aspects of the systematic drive toward globalization of Western capitalism.
It focuses on the failure of economic development from two perspectives,
namely, the perspective of the eurocentricity of
economic development theory and from the Western subordination of economic
development to its national security and political interests. The paper
argues that the blame for the present Abdolreza Banan is currently Professor of
Economics, Director of the International Studies Program and Mazur
Distinguished Professor at Michael Barber
"Levinas and the Idea of a Black Philosophy" If intellectual beliefs
are not necessarily associated with gross racial morphological features, as Appiah argues, then the possibility of a black philosophy
produced by black philosophers becomes problematical. However, such gross morpohological features, subsumed within a culture,
become the basis for racial discrimination whose victims in their turn offer
creative resistance -- and the processes become the focus of various black
studies, including back philosophy. Emmanuel Levinas'
philosophy provides a general theoretical framework that informs West's idea
of a black philosophy, responsive to its Other, the black underclass; that
guides and unifies diverse black philosophers and methodologies; that permits
non-blacks to contribute to a black philosophy that takes its cue not from
its author's skin color but from the plight and struggle of the victim of
racism; that precludes any racist counter-response to racism; and that founds
racial solidarity on ethics rather than on discredited racialist premises.
Michael Barber Associate professor of Philosophy,
at St. Louis University has authored several articles and fourbooks:
Social Typification and the Elusive Others, The
Place of Sociology of Knowledge in Alfred Schutz's
Phenomenology: Guardian of Dialogue, Max Scheler's
Phenomenology: Sociology of Knowledgeand Philosophy
of Love; Ethical Hermeneutics: Rationality in Enrique Dussel's Philosophy of Liberations; and Equality
and Alterity: Phenomenological Investigations of
Discrimination. Charles Bingham
"Language and Intersubjectivity: Recognizing the Other Without Taking Over or Giving In" In this paper I look at
the role speech plays in intersubjectivity. I begin
with a traditional phenomenological definition of intersubjectivity.
Intersubjectivity is the ability of the self or
recognize a self-conscious other. Phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty
has argued that speech is the bedrock of this brand of intersubjectivity,
but I find severe limitations withhis view of
language. Specifically, Merleau-Ponty does not
account for our compulsion to keep speaking with and other once we have
recognized her autonomous otherness. Nor does he account for the use of
speech when the other is repulsive to the self, or when the other threatens
to overcome the self's autonomy. Why would we wan to keep speaking in such
cases? I argue that the intersubjectivity position
of psychoanalysis helps to account for the limitations of Merleau-Ponty's
notion of intersubjectivity speech. Because intersubjectivity psychoanalysis accounts for the
symbolic qualities of speech, we can better understand the role of speech as
an ongoing project, and as a mode of avoiding domination and submission. I
use the work of Jessica Benjamin to illustrate intersubjective
psychoanalysis. Benjamin's analysis of symbolic speech reminds us that speech
is more than simply a bedrock of intersubjectivity.
Language enables us to keep a healthy tension between the other as we
represent him psychically, and the other as we represent him concretely as an
autonomous subject. Charles Bingham, is currently completing his doctoral
degree in Philosophy of Education at the Thomas G. Bowen
"Identity and Difference: The Question of Community" It has been said that the
question of community is one of the most pressing of our time. The importance
of this question is presented most powerfully in the recent history of the
collapse of communism. With political ideology no longer a sufficient binding
force, many of the old nations of the Soviet Bloc have fractured along
ethnic, religious and ancient nationalist lines. In the Balkans, and
especially the former Theoretically, two paradigms of community dominate attempts to analyze and understand these phenomena. On the one hand, neo-Kantian liberals like John Rawls continue the classical tradition of conceiving community as a contract. Individuals are viewed as fundamentally separate and independent of one another, and community is structured instrumentally geared towards the furtherance of, and refereeing of, individual interests and pursuits. On this model, community is external and accidental to the individual. On the other hand, the so-called communitarians have attempted to retrieve certain pre-modern conceptions of community as respublica. Here the emphasis is on the way in which individual identities are constructed in and by community. Rather than instrumental and external to the individual, this is a constitutive community, one which is bound together by a shared good or shared self-understanding around which the community is organized. While the differences between the liberal and communitarian conceptions of community are important, their similarities are equally telling. Both paradigms construct community on the basis of identity. Either the substantive identity of a common good or self-understanding, or the abstract identity of individuals as rights-bearers, the legal construction of personhood. Hence, the important question for each of these paradigms is what to do with difference or the other. Many scholars have turned
to the work of Hegel in order to find a path between these two paradigms.
Generally focusing on the concept of recognition, they believe that Hegel
offers a way to reconcile the communitarian with the liberal conceptions of
community. My paper will examine whether Hegel in fact offers any new
possibilities for understanding community that can steer clear of the dangers
of the liberal Scylla and the communitarian Charybdis.
Specifically, I will argue that while Hegel does offer some new insights into
the nature of community, nevertheless the concept of recognition and Hegel s
use of it, cannot be the final answer. The question
of difference remains still in Hegel s work, and to find an answer to this
question we must turn elsewhere. Biography unavaliable at time of program printing.
"Face to face in the flesh: Alterity, Ontology, and Ethics in Levinas and Merleau-Ponty" Levinas' insistence on the priority of the face in the ethical encounter goes a first step toward realizing the ethical dimensions of the human body. However, his sharp separation of ethics and ontology hampers his ultimate goal of getting at the meaning of ethics by robbing the individual of any concrete means of responding to the other as concrete other. In his endeavors to show that the face of the other is the infinite, meaning that it cannot be comprehended or that it does not have a horizon within which it becomes significant, what Levinas seems to require is a meaningfulness of the face without any possibility of being comprehended or recognized as a face. But, as others have already pointed out, Levinas does not give an account of how it is possible to respond to the other as other without first understanding the being of the other as other. That is, in order to respond appropriately to the other in the face to face encounter I must first recognize the other as other and not, for example, as a lampshade. But in this case I have understood in some sense the being of the other, and consequently an ontology is already present. Ultimately, Levinas' separation of ethics and ontology proves insufficient in understanding the ethical encounter in so far as the face risks becoming purely formal by being separated from any existing being. For these reasons, I will argue in this paper that despite his claims to the contrary, Levinas must rely on an ontology in order to complete his goal of establishing the importance of the ethical relation. Towards this end, I will contrast his exclusively ethical understanding of the face (which of course follows from his insistence on the separation of ethics and ontology) with Merleau-Ponty's ontological understanding of flesh and the ësocialí relation. In working out his radically new ontology of the flesh, Merleau-Ponty strove to respect alterity without reducing it to a moment of sameness. I will show that we would do better to understand the face of the other where the face is the body of the other in its ethical significance, its ethical dimensions, or in its capacity to oblige meóusing Merleau-Ponty's ontological notions of flesh and reversibility rather than in the exclusively ethical terms that Levinas sets forth. The actual obligation or responsibility to the face of the other, and thus the significance of ethics, is first made intelligible given the ontological thesis of the reversibility of the flesh. Levinas' face of the Other is inadequate because it is too formal, because it is not of this world (it has no being, it is not) and thus unrecognizable, and because it is mute until it is the face of a concrete other. Reversing a statement by Levinas, we could say that the Other is not an interlocutor first and an object of recognition second. The two relations are intertwined. In other words, the invocation of the Other is inseparable from the recognition of him or her. As Merleau-Ponty would likely say, just as "pure thought" does not mean anything except by coming to words, a "pure command of the face" does not oblige except by reference to a specific situation. Brian Bowles is a graduate student at Loyola
University Chicago who will soon begin work on his dissertation. He studied
philosophy and German at the James Biundo "Searching for Self: A Pirandellian Perspective" |